Breathing Love
by tsutsuji
Summary: Harry's odd little habit during sex allows Snape to transform a horror from the past to an act of love in the present. Snarry, slash, includes breathplay and heavy themes and fluff! . not DH compliant.


Title: Breathing Love

Author: Tsutsuji

Rating: M (very)

Warnings: m/m sex, breathplay. Brief mention of past torture and minor character death. (Harry is 18)

Written for Springkink round VIII, Prompt: Nov. 10 - Harry Potter, Snape/Harry: Breathplay - "I see your burning fuse from a mile away."

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter or any of these characters, and I'm not making any money for writing this.

Summary: "Every moment and every touch he shared with Harry rewrote the evils of his past, reclaimed life from remembered horrors. "

AN: I've loved this pairing for years but it's the first time I've tried to write them, so I hope I did okay with them. Oh, and btw, I guess this kinda ignores DH. ^^

At some point during those first six months when their relationship progressed from being a shock to a simple, glorious fact of reality, Snape noticed that Harry often held his breath during sex.

He didn't seem to do it consciously; in fact, Snape realized, he didn't even seem to notice he was doing it at all. He wondered at first if it was fear, as if Harry Potter, of all people, was secretly terrified of losing control in the frenzy of orgasm. But that didn't seem likely; Harry didn't hold himself back in sex any more than he did in Quidditch or anything else. Snape decided instead that Harry was just so aroused he forgot to breathe, for which he was tempted to take much of the credit.

Gradually, though, he realized that the breath-holding always started when Harry was already on the verge of orgasm. He couldn't help noticing this because, as time went on and his own initial giddy infatuation subsided to a more dignified level (after all, they didn't _both_ need to act like besotted, hormone-ridden teenagers, even if one of them technically was for two more years), he found he loved almost nothing more than to watch Harry's face in the throes of passion.

Holding his breath at that point seemed more like an unconscious maneuver to increase the intensity of an already immanent orgasm, Snape thought. Finally, after verifying through observation that it nearly always happened (which he made sure he had plenty of opportunities to observe), Snape asked him about it.

"Oh really? I do that?" Harry replied, bemused. "You've had a chance to notice something like that, have you? I must be slipping..."

So as it happened, on that occasion, Harry made it a point to be so incredibly _distracting_ that Snape didn't notice and didn't care whether Harry held his breath or sang God Save the Queen when he came. He was entirely too busy roaring through his own mind-shattering climax at the time.

On another occasion, however, not long afterward, he did bring it to Harry's attention, right at the critical moment. Snape saw him take quicker, shallower breaths with every one of his thrusts, watched Harry's eyes close tight and watched his cock twitch and his nuts tighten up, and then saw his chest muscles tighten and his mouth purse as he held back the next breath. And the next.

Half in mischief and half in the quest for knowledge - and purely for the pleasure of seeing Harry's reaction - Snape curled his fingers around Harry's cock, and at the same moment, leaned closer and murmured in his ear: "Breathe, Harry!" - in time with a slow, deep thrust of his hips that embedded him inside his lover's body to the core.

Harry's eyes flew open, staring straight up, those brilliant green eyes going sightless for a second and then latching onto him. With a great rush of breath, Harry came so hard he spattered both of them up to the chin. Quiddich-trained thighs gripped Snape's body and held him close, and the tremors from Harry's orgasm rippled through him and triggered his own sweet, blinding rush of release.

He was catching his breath afterward, with just a little difficulty - the peril of having a much younger lover, he'd thought more than once - when he heard Harry say musingly, "Oh yeah, that does make it a good bit hotter, doesn't it?"

Snape raised his head from Harry's chest, where it had landed when he lost all dignity and control; he shook the hair out of his eyes and looked up to see Harry grinning at him dazedly. He stared back, bedazzled, speechless for a moment. He had to wonder how that unruly mop of hair that had once been so annoying had become so incredibly erotic, and how green eyes could smoulder in the afterglow even more beautifully than they did in that furious anger that had once been all he ever saw in them. Eyes that once burned so hot with fury - at him and at the world - that he could be scorched by them even at the distance he was forced to keep, and now he could look into them so close like this that he could feel that heat and bask in it.

Sometimes, Harry took _his_ breath away.

"Does it, now," he managed to say, almost matter-of-factly. "Strange boy," he added with a quirk of an eyebrow.

Harry grinned at him.

It was some time later before it occured to him to do anything about it.

The next time Harry pulled him down onto their bed in an impatient flurry of robes and tangled limbs and glasses fallen askew, Snape watched him carefully. After the usual urgent, hungry groping and slurping and rolling all over each other that had somehow become their foreplay, they finally settled as they did most often, with Harry on his back, his legs hooked around Snape's waist and his arms raised to pull him down to kiss when Snape finally entered him. (The benefit of having a younger lover: Snape often thought; he hardly ever had to initiate anything, he only had to do his best to keep up)

They settled into a rhythm, slowly building, Harry's breath gradually becoming quicker as his eyes glazed over - beautifully, Snape thought. He took hold of Harry's arms that were around his neck and pressed them back onto the pillow beside his head. Harry complied easily, leaving his hands there when Snape bent down to lap at his throat and his jaw, and to listen to the breath quicken in his chest as he slowly increased the pace of and depth of his thrusts.

He waited until he saw the first signs that Harry was getting close. Then he simply, slowly, placed his hand over Harry's face, clamped tighly over his nose and mouth, and waited.

Harry's eyes flew wide open as he tested the weight of Snape's hand on his breath, and found it solid. His whole body twitched sharply, and Snape felt Harry's cock jump against his stomack. He smiled, just a little. Harry bucked hard against him, and held his gaze - the haze in them had lifted and his eyes were clear and bright now. He raised his hands to touch Snape's arms, but with his fingers curled into loose fists, not holding on, not pushing him back. Snape could only take that as a "yes."

It felt surreal. Strange enough, after all the horrors in their shared and rancorous past, that this was Harry Potter lying beneath him, wrapped around him, pulling him deep inside in the most intimate way two humans beings could be together. Taking Harry's breath like this only made it even stranger.

The smothering curse was not even on the list of spells he'd pledged before the Wizengamot to forget and never use again. He had managed to forget about it anyway, until that moment. Now the brief chant came back to his mind, and with the words came the memory of horrible Deatheater grins. He remembered trying to smile along with them while they watched the waves of pleading and panic rise in a breathless man's eyes, as seconds passed into minutes. Remembered the sudden grateful rasp of breath released, and the gagging silence when it was stopped again - and again. Until finally, there wasn't any breath left at all.

He never swore he would never use that spell again, but he did now, silently. Every moment and every touch he shared with Harry rewrote the evils of his past and reclaimed life from remembered horrors. In the place of torture, Harry's breath was a gift of pleasure given and returned. And even without the dreadful memory of that spell, the feel of his hand over Harry's face was so much more... intimate.

He leaned down closer, watching the brilliant green eyes that watched him back, holding his gaze even when he felt the first little thrill of instinctual fear ripple through the boy's body. It wasn't true panic yet, it was too soon for that; Harry had held his own breath longer than this on the verge of orgasm. Snape knew, from far too much experience, that the body's urgent signals to _breathe_ started building up long before the threat of passing out or dying was real.

He tightened the pressure of his hand, not because he needed to but so that Harry could feel it; at the same time he quickened the pace of his thrusts, and felt Harry's heartbeat speed up as well. Snape deepened the angle a little more, twisting his hips until he knew he'd hit just the right place inside of Harry, and at that he felt the first real suck of air against his hand.

"I can feel every breath you try to take, Harry," he said, his voice dropping lower with every word. "... I can feel your heart pounding faster and harder... I can feel your skin grow hotter..."

Seconds gathered into a full minute, and more. Harry's body tensed up, his pupils dilated, as the panic started to take hold. He reached up - and Snape prepared to let go in an instant, but Harry's hands only floated over his arms to his chest, then down to curl lightly around his ribs. Instead of trying to push him off, Harry thrust back against Snape harder than before, his whole body surging into it. His eyes never left Snape's face, only glazed over briefly as the urgent need to breathe washed through him again, but then focused as clearly as before, simply ... waiting.

The steady trust in those deep green eyes nearly stopped Snape's breath.

He reached down between them and found Harry's cock, as hard as ever, bouncing against his stomach. When his fingertips barely touched it, Harry jerked hard under him and tried to gasp.

Snape lifted his hand.

Harry's first, huge breath was a groan of pure pleasure; his whole body surged upward with the force of it. Snape thrust into him sharply, in time with each desperate breath after, and a few seconds later Harry was groaning, grasping onto him with every muscle standing out as he came, hissing, "Sseverusss-aahhh!" through clenched teeth.

Flooded with relief, lost in Harry's breath and his voice, in his pounding heart and his pleasure and his _trust_, Snape clutched Harry's body as it rolled under him and let his own breathless orgasm carry him away.

He realized, a little later, that Harry was still fully alert; he was the one who had nearly passed out. He raised his head to find that he'd rolled, or collapsed, to the side, and that Harry was all arms and legs wrapped around him, and that he'd entwined one arm around Snape's and held his limp hand nuzzled against his lips. Eyes closed, a blissful little smile on his still-flushed face, Harry looked at that moment like a debauched angel - with a hand fetish.

He thought of trying to pull his hand away, but before he could summon the will to move any more than his heavy eyelids, Harry's eyes opened. He searched Snape's face for a second, brows tightening, as if he was wondering how Snape knew just how long to hold on, how he was so familiar with the limits of breath and life. Snape didn't let his expression change. He would tell Harry if he asked, but he hoped he wouldn't.

Then Harry grinned - as only a sexually sated, teenage wizard with a bratty attitude could grin, Snape thought. That besotted-teenager feeling started to creep over him again.

"Have to admit," Harry said, his voice muffled as he wiggled closer, tucking Snape's hand under his chin so they were face to face, so close he could feel Harry's eyelids flutter against his cheek, "I do enjoy watching you do things with your hands!"

Snape hmfd. "You are so very easy to entertain," he said.

The easy - though still astonishing - familiarity of their relationship brushed aside the last shreds of dark memories. Snape let Harry settle next to him while he drifted off toward sleep, and just listened to him breathe.

~~ end ~~


End file.
